Sam-AVFC

I know what you mean, Rodders. There are a few, like War of The Worlds, I've started and not been gripped by at all so stopped reading. I just struggle to not finish a book once I've started it so try not to get roped in with something I probably wont enjoy. I know it's a bit silly.

It's definitely interesting to see the different writing styles, but the main thing I like is how compact a lot of early 20th century classics are. Whereas all movies & books nowadays just seem to get longer and longer there didn't appear to be a problem with telling your story then finishing.

Those pictures bring back all my childhood resentment of my dad (a carpenter) never building me a treehouse.

We were left to our own devices to build one at my grandma's on Sundays - with hindsight to get me, my sister and various cousins out of the way after lunch - and all we managed over about 5 years was to nail a wooden pallet to a tree and create a basic ladder to get to it.

11 hours ago, useless said:

I finished reading Petersburg by Andrei Bely then tried reading Into The Heart of Darkness, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Peter Pan and Vanity Fair, but quit reading them all as for some reason I couldn't quite get into them. Am now reading 'At Swim Two Birds', not far from the finish won't quite that one.

I started to read more classic novels a while ago when I realised you can download most of them for free on a Kindle - started with The Great Gatsby being well know and a short read and was hooked.

Is Petersburg good? It's one I've had my eye on for a while.

Has anyone read Romance of The Three Kingdoms before? I'm really interested in it as a historical and mythical text that still influences so much of modern Chinese culture. The size of the thing is quite daunting and I can't start something then not finish so don't want to start and find myself still trying to finish it 6 months down the line.

Glad to find this thread as I've been looking for some new books to read recently.

Out of interest, has anyone else ever visited Bookbarn near Bath? I used to absolutely love going there when I was younger and still would now, but am unfortunately no longer based in the South West. They actually popped up on Dragons Den a couple of years ago, but had large debts so couldn't get investment.

It's hard to get an idea of scale from a lot of the pictures online because, while the rooms are enormous, it's all sectioned off by shelving. I'm pretty sure they have a stock of something like 1 million books. The below picture give you some context:

Bear in mind that is taken from the centre of the room.

In terms of what they sell, I'm pretty sure it's all second hand. It ranges from the sort of stuff you'd get in any old charity shop to rare books and some interesting reproductions. One of my favourites I saw there was a Chinese book with of all of Da Vinci's sketches in it...only downside was I can't read Mandarin so the annotations were a bit useless!

37 minutes ago, Mic09 said:

I'm sure people have died playing chess

But you do you know of anyone dying as a result of playing chess?

11 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

What's a 5-fer. Pretend I am a 6 year old that knows nothing about cricket. 

5 wickets in an innings.

2 hours ago, Davkaus said:

The requirements seem fairly easy to pass; you basically can't have been a proven sports cheat, can't have been disqualified from being a company director,can't have been bankrupt, and can't be a convict.

Unbelievably Bassini who they did approve and was apparently trying to take over was literally banned from owning a football club for three years for dodgy goings on when he owned Watford! He even went into bankruptcy a few years ago to avoid paying back other directors at Watford who sued and won.

Maybe it's just because it was such a desperate situation they needed to approve anyone who could afford to take over as administration was so close.

The stat about the numbers of clubs going into admin now compared to the past is a bit of an eye opener. I think the main problem at the moment is allowable losses completely hamstring Championship clubs in the current market. Ideally I'd like to see the Premier League filter down a much bigger share of TV monet to the football league rather than allowable losses increased, but pretty sure they only just agreed a new deal.

14 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Wasn't was it?

Angelino has been brought back to be a part of their squad.

Yeah, I didn't mean Angelino.

I meant the first post I saw on Luiz hypotheticals ie this post:

4 hours ago, carewjust4u said:

City could buy him back cheaply and sell him on either to us or other suitors at the end of this season for a bigger profit...that would make the most business sense their end

Admittedly now I've realised it was the same poster writing both posts I should probably edit that as can't tell him what he meant

1 hour ago, carewjust4u said:

I see your point...but money (wage increase and signing on fee) and to train under Pep Guardiola, both very compelling reasons for any player.

They recently did something very similar with that Angelino lad from PSV. (who i doubt will get any game time in the league)

But that wasn't the scenario, it was City buying him back just to sell him on.

He could of course pretend he was OK with this then when bought by City refuse to move though I expect this would see him training with the u23s rather than Guardiola & the first team.

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

So how then do you disagree with me saying that you could have said that about any of the players last season?

 

There is a middle ground between saying "that" about "any of our squad" and being "supremely confident then that the entirety of the rest of last seasons squad could/would make the step up with little to no problem".

1 hour ago, zab6359 said:

Yeah doesn't always work like that unfortunately, be nice if they were to buy him back as he'd improved and they want him for themselves but often it's purely to sell them on so they make the profit. Oh well is what it is. 

But he would still have to agree to be their pawn for them to make easy money in this scenario.

I'd personally be quite offended if my old employer rang me, told me to go back there so they can get a fee for me then immediately joining somewhere else.

If I did want the move, I'd just cut out the middle man ie refuse a contract from Man City and accept one from Whoever so the club that I actually had minute on the pitch for and helped me develop was the one to benefit.

2 minutes ago, sne said:

So drop Grealish?

Well however he played “we still lost” and “not like we’d be changing a winning team”.

4 hours ago, allani said:

(b) Luis becomes our main player and we finish in the top 3 and look like being a title threat to MC so they buy him back and sell him overseas to undermine our threat

Why would Luiz agree to that if it happened though?

Now we're not signing him, might as well continue the tangent.

I actually think Maguire will be a great signing for Utd. Did anyone really think Van Dijk was that good when he played for Southampton? No way I thought he was a £75m player - they took a calculated risk on him stepping up playing with better players and being managed by Klopp and he did it admirably.

7 minutes ago, useless said:

We were much stronger last season striker wise than we are this season, relative to the division we're in

I'd say we were stronger in every position 'relative to the division'. In terms of actual strength, I think wilko154 summed it up nicely. Can understand people thinking we don't have enough quality options, but really can't see how you can say it's actually worse than last year.

You'd have to say Norwich & Sheff Utd were too otherwise we'll have an exciting fight for top 2.

I think he's got a lot of potential and could be a very good player, but I trust the club to make a better informed decision on whether there is a worthwhile deal to be had than the recently formed Cult of Benrahma.

If we get one more I think I'd prefer someone who can play up top and out wide anyway.

12 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Torino is close to Milan (relatively).

Just sayin’

It's even closer to Turin airport.

Does Brexit mean EU as well as non-EU transfers could be this protracted from January? 

Also seems odd that the process was so much quicker for Wesley. 

@Mic09

Can't say I disagree with any of that! From the surveyor/valuation end of things it also sounds like the whole thing is an absolute shambles.

I heard something a few months ago that would have surprised me if I hadn't worked for the Civil Service in the past*; apparently when HS2 was costed, they didn't make any adjustments for rising land value to take into account valuations wouldn't be set for a long, long time after costing the project.

* not a dig at Civil Servants, just the fact all organisations are well under funded causing anyone decent to either move on or become completely apathetic.

1 minute ago, Mic09 said:

What about a purpose built stadium at the site of the planned Curzon Street station should HS2 not go ahead? Just around the corner from Aston?

Is there something to say it wont?!

I know quite a few people that do Compulsory Purchase valuations for either side and with the amount of money spent I'd be amazed if it gets cancelled. It will go way, way over budget, but don't see them scrapping it.

5 minutes ago, thunderball said:

Jeez, how dull can your football club be?

Tbf the Madjeski has less atmosphere than your average shopping centre. I think they just get excited that someone actually wants to join them.

4 minutes ago, thunderball said:

Reading are still laughing.

Mind you I think that stopped when they bought Bacuna.

Guy I sit next to at work is a Reading season ticket holder and Bacuna was his favourite player when he played for them.

Birmingham winning 1-0 away to Brentford with 24% possession and 1 shot after 80 minutes!

I was at that Reading game with a colleague who is a season ticket holder. Unfortunately my only game of the year and not the most exciting ground to visit!

Obviously only Mings could say for sure whether it was accidental or not, but my immediate reaction is that it was based on the fact not a single Reading fan appealed. Now granted, Readinf fans sitting in silence isn't much of a tell, but talking about it after none of them saw any malice in it either.

Then the picture of Oliveira's face made it onto Twitter and a lot more people were calling it a stamp.

5 minutes ago, Genie said:

West Ham United (31.05.2011 - 29.06.2015)   That's 4 years. I'm not sure what the point was you were making. You also mentioned £84m invested, that's £21m per year, or about £3.5m per player.

The last transfer was January 2015 and I’m pretty sure the window opened the day after that period so the last half a year is a bit tenuous to include.

It wasn’t me that mentioned the cost though.

Just pedantry - I’m not getting into the actual argument.